A Viable Variation of the Quad Shammy Gladiator Comp?

3 Words: Ranged Mortal Strike
I've been very successful so far with the cookie cutter quad sham comp, but I've also been thinking of variations that would be non-disruptive, and add something to the comp... like an invaluable MS...

I had been chatting with my priest about how nice it would be to drop a shaman for a hunter... still boxed so he could follow my target changes effectively. He went and talked to a couple highly geared huntards who started spamming me to join lol (I'm the top rated 5v5 on our server).

Heres the idea, for my focus kill target, or any kill target for that matter, the hunter would bring MS to the table. Incredibly useful of course. I would probably lose a small chunk of dmg, because I don't know of any hunter abilities that can guarantee 8kish instant dmg like a shaman has, but it would be so useful for those times when that pesky warrior is left at 5% health... and gets rehealed before my CLs go off. I told the interested hunters that in order for it to work, they would pretty much have to give me their acct info and let me merge their hunter into my boxing setup during 5v5 nights, as a result they get 1k+ pts per week and gear :P

I probably wont do this, but its an interesting idea for any arena boxers who may have a hunter clone lying around.

PS... thats without taking into consideration ice trap, pet stuns, scatter shot, etc etc that a hunter brings to the table. BMs are doing some sick dmg in 5v5 I've seen.

I was thinking of:

Get savage elemental gear.

Get full hateful enhancement gear.

Get a healer and a deathknight

Let DK follow your main.

DK grips, 3x stormstrike go off and BOOM someone must be dead.

Prolly wont work but enhancement is so fun to play :)

Melee is the suck in arena unfortunately. There are so many gimmicks that sound awesome... just like instant lava burst sounds awesome and flawless... but it still requires surgical precision and a lil luck to use.

A PS, shield wall, or plate wearer in general would easily survive it, and then you're left with no MS, and no more tricks up your sleeve.

I admit tho, it would be hilarious when it DOES work.

I dont know if you where joking about using someone elses hunter account but it is against TOS to account share and it will get you banned when your opponents start QQ about it.

No, that's what I told them as a reason why I won't let THEM play their hunter in my comp. It would only be viable if I am controlling it.

I just wish I had a hunter of my own I could test with. Too late in the season to be switching things up however, I'm racing against 1 horde team for #1 on the server, therefore gladiator.

They'd be ok playing their account, while you play yours.
It likely wouldn't win for you, due to lack of syncrosity and coordination.

If you were to play someone elses account, you'd both be banned in fairly short order.
Arena is high scrutiny. You might get away with someone elses account in an obscure location.
You won't when everything is checked and rechecked to see how they beat your team.

I wouldn't all of your accounts, guaranteed you'll lose them eventually.
In arena, probably sooner rather then later.

Enough DeRailing. Im not going to play someone elses account. Just as I am not going to attempt this comp, or risk anything, until I get my Glad. this season.

I wanted to throw the idea out there, which I feel the numbers support, that someone may want to try this... as I feel it would be just as, or nearly as viable as quad sham.

With some practice the hunter could set up to attack your target about as easily as your alts do, just have them set up focus or whatever targeting you use, and practice with you a bit.

I thought about this too, and putting /assist on his Aimed Shot would work, the rest of his damage might be split tho. Also, usually my kill target is in front of me, but on occassions where some nub runs off alone, and tries to flank me, I will group-turn and gib them since they are guaranteed to not have nearby heals... granted this is a rare exception.

Pondered this many times while I boxed shammies.
A hunter brings not only MS, but also 41 yard snare, which is immensely useful for shammies that lack the long range catching ability, and pretty good healer interruption with pet.


However I would recommend playing the hunter as main character, to fully utilize him. You probably know how to play shammies inside out, so it will be much easier to use the hunter as your new main, and let the shammies follow with appropriate spells.

I imagine a rogue would work better tbh, stun locking people in a spot and aoe slow,ms and cast speed reduction can put insane pressue on the enemy healers.

Remember that the first target will be the hunter and hes not exactly hard to kill, while focused by multiple players his damage will be very low. (hand of freedom is an option though)

MS class + 3 casters and a healer works pretty ok but they often rely on ccing one healer and locking down the other one. With all the imunities this setup got way harder in wotlk and is pretty rare but it works good if its played right.

Scenarios i see that is hard goes like this:

You wont be able to nuke like you do with 4 shamans, a hunters burst is not even close to it.
Mortal strike sounds nice on paper but it is removed by hand of protection, most 5v5 carries got a paladin, either ret or holy.
Mortal strike do not counter pain supression and PW:shield.

Pet interruption is not noticable for a healer and they all got counters for it, if you got a paladin with conc aura up you got 0 spell pushbacks. (if you specced 70% less spellpush back wich every above crap healer spec) Even without it a resto shaman counter it with earth shield,priests with PW:shield and paladins with sacred shield and conc aura. I belive barkskin makes druids immune to spellpush backs but im not sure and theyr hotting pretty much.

If this should in any case work the hunter most likley have to be played by another player, if not you wont get anything off with your hunter and he dies faster then a cloth user atm. Even if you kill one a meele team will pressure your hunter even harder then before and most likley kill him aka your left with 3 shamans+your healer while they have one down aswell. This is in 99% of the cases a loss to me since i cant take down anything since even one healer can outheal me if his team mates are decent with silencing and stunning.

Hunters got 2 tools to migate damage and that is a soul link look alike pet talent with 30 sec cooldown that absorbs 30% damage. A good enemy team knows this and gib 20k hp with 0 resillience before you can say "pet". The other is making you deflect all magic and meele damage infront of you(seems to work 360 degrees thought) You cant attack while this ability is active.

Im not saying its impossible but i dont see it as a good solution either as the point is to burst before healers apply pain supression,ns heals etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'magwo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=209238#post20 9238

Pondered this many times while I boxed shammies.
A hunter brings not only MS, but also 41 yard snare, which is immensely useful for shammies that lack the long range catching ability, and pretty good healer interruption with pet.


However I would recommend playing the hunter as main character, to fully utilize him. You probably know how to play shammies inside out, so it will be much easier to use the hunter as your new main, and let the shammies follow with appropriate spells.

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This is an excellent point, I can play an ele with 1 hand & blindfolded, and I cant even begin to think how many LOSers I would have killed this season if I could range snare them for just ONE more second. I might start leveling a hunter for this next season. Much better trap control.

Rogue... tbh.... F that. I HATE the feel of controlling elementals with a Melee main char. Similar to boxing a heroic with tank+shamans. Range issues would be horrible... and you would find yourself doing one of 2 things...

1- Your rogue would just be standing there doing nothing while your shamans nuke
2- You would attempt to dps on your rogue and forget about your off-camera shammies... and they get destroyed.

Hunter it is, I'll let you guys when I have something to test.

I could see playing the Hunter as the main, and 3 shammies are the slaves.
You can already control your four shammies, which is one main and three slaves fine.

The hunter as a lead toon is not on follow.
The hunter as a slave is on follow.
Auto shot switches to melee attacks when your target gets to a close range.
Melee attacks break follow, which leaves the hunter sitting there while the rest of your team moves.
As a leader, you actively control the hunter and the casting slaves never suffer this fate.

I'm not sure you gain enough to justify the loss.
A fourth shammy is that much extra burst on demand.
It's an extra cleansing totem, grounding totem etc.
But the hunter does bring ranged snare, ranged MS, frost trap with ensnarement...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'asonimie',index.php?page=Thread&postID=209180#pos t209180

I'm racing against 1 horde team for #1 on the server, therefore gladiator.

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If I created 5 toons on your server, boxed them to 80, farmed 5k gold, and sent it to your main, would you post some videos?

Lolz

I am actually limited because of hardware at the moment. I really really want to make some videos, but alas - I run 4 clients just fine, but I tried running fraps and it just KILLS my FPS on the main... so I can't. You could send me a second box tho, then I'll make videos all day. I'll even include my priest and I screamin at eachother on vent :)

The only useful post in here was about the huntard being you’re main. Heh. Fact is you are right about everything looking good on paper. In actuality it’s not nearly what it seems. Unless someone here has boxed in arena with a hunter and shamans they are just speculating. So only way to know if it will work like you would want is to try it 8)
IMO, with my vast arena knowledge, with the right gear and a lot of practice at it if your competent (which obviously you are) you could prolly do better. Gives you more utility in exchange for burst. But that’s quite a reach for you man GL.

And btw grats on your success in 5s and GL on Gladiator man. How competitive is your BGs 5v5 bracket? Our BG has just started booming in 5s the last month or so.

I love the idea, but the tradeoff you're making is potentially not being able to burst someone down in 1 second by going from 4x LB to 3x. MS gives you much more ability to sustain DPS, but is that worth the gib everytime EM is off CD? It seems to me trading a Shaman for a Hunter is moving away from the insta-5v4 that 4x LB crits brings and more towards concerted DPS, which I don't think is going to be near as successful.

/shrug

I don't think it's that great of a tradeoff, as the hunter has reasonable burst, and in combination with arcane shot purge and mortal strike effect, it should be very deadly.
With some patience, I really see this setup working.

Think of it like this: The burst should be at least comparable to 3.6-3.7 shammies, which isn't bad.. and add mortal strike tho that -> death.


On a side note, I made 4 fairly ambitious level 19 twink hunters.. and they totally blew every other twink out of the water in WSG.. indeed boxed hunters are extremely lethal if you have sufficient healing.

I just see a BM hunter adding SO much to a shammy box. :)
Just looking at Intimidation - the sub-1-min-CD stun.. in combination with concussive shot.. that's a totally easy and free kill once every minute, from loooong range.

It might take a lot of practice, but in the end I see it as being much more deadly than the quad shammy box.. the hunter basically fills in the major weaknesses of the shammies, primarily catching targets at range before they go out of LOS, which was THE problem I had with my 5v5 shammies.

I'd rather wait for MS LB's.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'magwo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=211010#post21 1010

I just see a BM hunter adding SO much to a shammy box. :)
Just looking at Intimidation - the sub-1-min-CD stun.. in combination with concussive shot.. that's a totally easy and free kill once every minute, from loooong range.

It might take a lot of practice, but in the end I see it as being much more deadly than the quad shammy box.. the hunter basically fills in the major weaknesses of the shammies, primarily catching targets at range before they go out of LOS, which was THE problem I had with my 5v5 shammies.

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This is my exact thoughts. Yes I freely admit I would lose 7k damage (maximum) on my burst button, but I'll be honest with you guys... the IWIN button is about 10% as cool as it sounds. It requires perfect setup and execution to actually kill anyone at high rating. Constant lightning pressure on high rated teams is just as effective. Why? 2 reasons: healing and LOS... 2 problems a hunter would cure with MS and snares.

Playing 4 shamans is tough enough, I'm not looking forward to re-learning my combos with a hunter... but yes I feel it would be slightly superior - with TONS of practice.

I wish you good luck and its just theorycrafting by everyone untill somone does it, but against high rated teams i doubt it will work since they are so damn good at playing turtle. Aim shot sounds superb but as soon as your target got hand of protection you are left with 3 dps since a hunters dps is all meele, most teams also carry a paladin due to rets/holy's beeing so good for 5v5. The hunter will be the weakest link in your team and cant realy withstand meele damage at all, if you use hand of protection on him he cant dps either. Hunters rely on beeing mobile to survive, even with BW up you wont be able to eat the dps from 3 meele for long without a shield or using deterrance. Ive played my hunter alot in pvp and another thing that totaly destroy him vs meele is disarm..

The problem this seson is not that high rated teams los the shit out of me, its rather that people come in and roll over me. If i can survive all theyr migations i ususaly win but its not easy vs a team who can do a well cordinated burst along with some kind of cc against my healer, im testing a high rated healer atm who atually played this game to the fullest and im looking forward to it.

You could take the advantage of BW and that shamans gets 100% run speed with ghost wolf no matter what slow you got on them. (quite insane tbh) But atm i have a hard time beliving it would work this seson..

Aff locks is getting alot of buffs next patch (including the pet buffs) and aff locks are FAR easier to kill then destro locks, they should be free kills to 4x ele shamans even with soul link. (also easier for hunter/3shamans since the lock is cloth)

lol to be honest, I'm actually leveling a affliction lock team for 5v5 next season. Crunched some numbers and they have pretty amazing potential actually. As in 3 globals = 22k dmg per tick on a target.

yeah give range ms

Why not just level your own hunter? I am doing a 4hunter and 1 priest team and I have to admit that they can do impressive dps.... but (and that's a big but) if anything gets within melee range dps drops through the floor. I got embarassed by a 67 rogue today (my team is 63), granted he jumped my priest and I wasnt expecting it. 3k evisc on priest.. dead priest, so then the hunters are attempting to melee down the rogue (oh god) and my pets are all red and attempting to do their thing. I hit 4 times pet stun because rogue went evasion in hopes of getting a stun off. Didnt work. So then Im thinking drop frost trap and thats when another horde joined and I died. I think even had that other horde not showed up I still would have died. Hunters up close are embarassing, they couldn't beat their way outta a wet paper bag.

Rogue evasion made it really difficult, any other melee and I would have wing clipped and run off.

And that is my amazing pvp experience. LOL. Totally helpful and applicable to high level arena, totally. 8|